Apple will add multitasking to the Jesus Phone this summer with the release of the divine handset's version 4.0 software update, according to a report citing anonymous people who have accurately predicted Jobsian behavior in the past .
AppleInsider reports that iPhone OS 4.0 will offer a "full-on solution" to multitasking, …

Stereotypically, yes, but...

Not actually true

Whils the majority of Americans are religious, party explained by the religious persecution in Europe that drove their ancestors to emigrate, it is a relatively small minority of them that form the small but vociferously intolerant "moral majority". Stands to reason as liberally minded people have faith in the power of reasoned debate which the numpties studiously avoid and in intelllectual circles raising your voice and making emotional appeals are signs of weakness and are quite possibly doomed over time as a result. There was a good series of articles on BBC Radio 4 on this "Why do turkeys vote for Christmas", I think it was called.

Regarding multi-tasking on the phone I think the power drain argument has some credence but this is down to the hardware as much anything else. A future multi-core ARM processor should have little problem.

Telephone facts

I bought an iPhone on the launch day in the UK. 2nd Nov 2007 IIRC.

I have just had to fit a new battery as the original one was flagging, but it has been jail-broken for 2 years and I have had no problems with running third party apps in the background using Backgrounder. It even shows the app which is running on the home-screen by way of a cogwheel 'badge' on the icon. I can't see why Apple didn't allow it all along. It works great with Yahoo messenger, Skype or Internet Radio. If it runs low on memory, the most dormant Apps are simply silently quit (This is also the default/official way the built-in Apple apps handle backgrounding, they stay running when you close them until the memory is needed).

Can it be?

Cade, that link to Wikipedia is brilliant, and manna for those of us who regard the iPod & iPhone as visually impressive but technically inferior. If I may copy & paste (which the iPhone can do now, I hear):

"[Saint Joseph of Cupertino] was said to have been remarkably unclever, but prone to miraculous levitation and intense ecstatic visions that left him gaping."

Another Saint

Will only be for newer models

I can't image Apple would enable multi-tasking on older models. The iPhone does currently allow one type of multi-tasking- you can run an app while it's installing another in the background. The performance of this is terrible so I can't see checking your mail while a song plays in the background on YouTube working being any better.

At best I could see the next iPhone model having some sort of dual core CPU that should give enough horse power to run two things at once.

It does a lot more than that

Try starting a song in the iPod app, then doing absolutely anything else. Or starting a page loading in Safari, doing something else sufficiently light that Safari isn't evicted from memory (eg, run Mail), then heading back in there. It seems likely that most of the bundled apps can run alongside one another.

And from a pedantic point of view, third-party apps can't take part in multiprogramming as everybody means when they say multitask nowadays, but they can multitask in ye olde sense in that the full complement of threading stuff (Cocoa and POSIX) is available. Which is helpful if you're a developer who is porting code or trying to keep the GUI thread responsive.

Fail

It already has enough horsepower to do two things at once because it already does loads of things at once, But then you'd know that, because surely you wouldn't be posting your "facts" without first-hand knowledge of the device.

All together now

Context and understanding, my son

To "take the lord's name in vain" is to do with oath-taking, not swearing or simply making fun of the Saint Jobs of Cupertino. Taking an oath on the name of God gets you in trouble because it's a very profound thing to do, and not something to be taken lightly - or, as they would have said back then, in vain.

It's fug all to do with jokes. Jesus himself was a first-class punster, it just doesn't come through very well in the translations. In aramaic he would have been a laugh riot.

They tried that with their computers,,,

When Apple did the whole PowerPC RISC-is-great thing, they promoted RISC as the new best thing in 1994. Until a small British company pointed out that they'd been doing that since the latter years of the '80s on a homegrown RISC unit. (so nerr!)

Thus, it would come as no suprise to hear innovation promoted when it isn't anything so new at all. Though, in defence of the annointed fruit, this isn't exactly unusual for the tech industry, is it?

British did it, sure...

I am sure that there are some terribly gifted British coders (actually quite a few, especially for games and media) who can claim multi-tasking was there invention. It might even be true (don't tell the guys who wrote Multics, or ITS at MIT).

But even if they did, they had the usual British tech marketing plan...flatten 50 fag packets*, write the name of the product and their telephone number on the back, and pass them out at a single trade show, whilst demoing their product on a single machine set up on a card table, with the company name hand-lettered on reversed green-bar printer paper (used natch). When the world didn't beat a path to their door, they all got bored and became estate agents so as to pay the rent...

Hmm, is that an official MasPar flattened fag packet you have there...?

* - fag packets are cigarette boxes, for our North American friends, not cling-film wrapped homosexuals...not that there is anything WRONG with that, mind you.

Nothing wrong with it, but.....

"fag packets are cigarette boxes, for our North American friends, not cling-film wrapped homosexuals...not that there is anything WRONG with that, mind you."

... ensure you leave an airhole available (I said airhole, pipe down in the back! - oh wait, pipe? down? back? ...no pun intended there either!), or you'll end up with a dead homosexual wrapped in clingfilm, and that is definitely frowned upon.

I think Apple may have heard of this little British company

Excuse me...

I didn't say the British invented multitasking (don't know who did, I asked Google and got lots of references to the iPhone!).

What I was referring to was Apple thinking it put out the world's first RISC desktop computer. If you're an Apple fanboi, fine, carry on thinking that and putting out lame comments about writing details on ciggie packets. Whatever. You're wrong. By around seven years, which is a heck of a long time in computer terms.

Acorn

It's just a pity Acorn in their current guise now make set top boxes. I would say 'oh, how the mighty have fallen', but they were never particularly mighty (which is a crime in itself) - just very good at what they did.

It's called advertising...

And it'll be no more annoying than any of the recent "I'm five and I did this in windows(with the help of an adult but we won't mention that)" ads from Microsoft , or "Windows 7 was my Idea" especially the search ones ( 7 seconds? You really should try spotlight, much quicker!).

Pre-emptive multitasking

As anyone who has ever used a Windows OS knows, Windows has never had true pre-emptive multitasking.

This is evident when you are connecting to a network for example, when everything freezes on your desktop until the connection is made. It is also evident - particularly on Vista - when you load a DVD with thousands of files on it.

Multi-threading or multitasking makes the most sense when multiple CPU's are available with one to handle IO (for example) and others to handle application steps. Maybe the IPhone is getting another processor?

Really

I've had multitasking enabled on my iPhone for ages, never needed to use it. I quite like doing one task without being interrupted. I've even set my email to only check for new messages every hour as I find constant email messages disruptive.

True, Will, what's the point?

I mean, I have an old 1st gen iPhone, I love it dearly and if I want to quickly check my email I can, if I want to search for something on the internet, I can, if I want to "Shazam" a tune, I can.

I mean FFS it is a little hand held device why would it need multi tasking. As far as I can see if I am downloading the latest fart app from the App store and I want to check my mail it still allows me to download my mail, read it, reply to it and then resume my iFart app download.

If you need a computer with proper pre-emptive multi tasking then you need a COMPUTER, not a phone (likewise, if you need high quality Photo's, you need a CAMERA, not a phone)

Meh

Get Some Facts!!

The iPhone ALREADY multitasks - how do you think it browses the web and answers a f*cking phone call at the same time? Apple are adding the ability to run multiple third-party apps at once - it's not multitasking, as any A-level IT trainee will tell you.

I thought this was a technical IT website, not Janet and John get a Computer. The anti-Apple-tards need to get some facts to base their hate on.

Mutl-waiting...

"I thought multitasking was the work of the devil... Could this be St Jobs actually admitting to making a mistake?"

No, somebody slipped the "forbidden" fruit in his lunch time fruit salad! :-D

Seriously though, I had a Touch Pro before my iPhone 3GS. It was great - until you got a couple of apps running in the background, then it slowed to a crawl and was useless. I spent most of my time going into the processes menu and killing anything that I didn't currently need, in an attempt to keep it running smoothly.

The same goes for my experience with Android, multi-tasking made it sluggish and unstable.

To be honest, I haven't found the lack of multi-tasking a problem - apart from the odd game that thinks I would prefer to listen to their inane music, rather than the podcast I am currently listening to!

@Pre-emptive multitasking

The main problem isn't...

the main problem isn't the battery power as most people think, it's the lack of memory. The RAM on the iPhone (at least the original and 3G models) is very small. The 3GS doubled the available RAM. Many applications can run out of memory very quickly. There's no 'paging' or 'virtual memory' as such built into the processor so it all has to be swapped in and out of RAM as needed manually.

I think this foreshadows a new model of iPhone with even more RAM, say 1GB, to allow more stuff to go on at once. I wouldn't be surprised if it's memory matches the iPad.

Use of religious language

is a criticism of idolatry, excessive love of Apple, Macs,Steve Jobs, and of this phone.

It is reproaching love of false gods.

Bilocation is "just" being in two places at once, which, depending on what you mean, doesn't happen in reality, or is an odd feature of quantum theory (see also superposition), or is what any telephone does, not only iPhone - you can talk into the ear of somebody who is thousands of miles away.

An odd feature of quantum theory? HRMPF!

As every fule know, monolocation is an odd feature of objects that are large in relation to their de Broglie wavelength -- as they shed information about their current position or their dead/alive state into their surroundings with careful abandon.

@Ascylto

multi tasking

Over rated.

I use my iPod to play my music, I use my PC for gaming and my phone for actually talking to people wirelessly who are too far away for me to shout at. Actually I still use my phone then as I don't like shouting. Everything else is done by other people.

Is it that big an issue no - but Java and Skype are

Not really, It's a phone! Even for iPad it's not that big an issue - iPad is aimed at my mum who hates computers but likes to sit on the sofa look at pictures of her GrandChildren on Flickr

The only real irritation is that I would like to listen to 'my' music while I'm playing online poker.

The real irritation is that I want to be able to watch java based content on my iPhone and I would want to be able to use a microphone on iPod/iPod so I can use skype properly.

I use skype on my iPhone all the time and it has been a real lifesaver. Anyone who works around St Pauls/Paternoster Sq in London knows what it's like when you can;t get Cells but can get free Wireless...